Prepackaged software giant Microsoft uncorked its latest online business productivity service, dubbed Office 365, today.
It's essentially a re-branding exercise by Redmond, which has replaced the firm's clunkily-named Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) of apps with a cloud-based offering for biz customers.
But the song …

Lets see if I've got this straight

That clicking sound you can hear

... is the sound of the clock being turned back to the 1960s when software was RENTED from the monopolistic incumbent. It will shortly be followed by a loud THUD, which is the door being slammed shut as your data gets locked into a place that only Microsoft holds the key to.

Seriously, didn't anybody learn anything from the excesses, exploitations and abuses of the past? I'm just waiting for the brand new punch-card technology to be [re]introduced. I'm sure that someone, somewhere will be able to spin it into something desirable for their callow customers to gobble up. After all, it's recyclable - innit?

@Pete 2

You do realise that subscription and SaaS is the way most business is going, not a backwards step? BaseCamp, Jira, FogBugz - virtually every online service that isn't free promotes hosted, subscription-based services?

It's almost like you wanted to criticise MS so much, you didn't get your facts straight first.

Cloud is good... if you own the cloud.

Your logic is somewhat flawed.

popular = improved ?? (Crazy Frog, anyone?)

SaaS and subscription WAS the way computing was done in the '60s. It was good for vendors, bad for customers. Nothing has changed in that department except that now you have a choice NOT to follow the lemmings.

Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. (Who DID say that?)

Who said that?

Meh

It's cyclic. The people who got screwed 30,40,50 years ago the first time round - when the big boys said "You don't want to bother with all that - let us handle it all for you" are all dead/retired or out of the biz - or not in a position of influence. There are now rich pickings to be had from trying the same old cons to a new generation of smug innocents who think they know better than their forebears and are too arrogant to listen, anyway.

They will learn. Eventually.

After that, I confidently predict that in 20 or 30 years time, there will be a renaissance of newly discovered "open" systems, complete with published standards, APIs and interconnectivity. At that point all the 30-something pundits - todays toddlers, just learning to dribble on a Wii - or is that wee on a Drobo? - will praise it as "revolutionary" and wonderful and new and much better than these nasty, closed, cloud systems. Just as today's journos, who make a living out of hyping stuff just because it's novel, are currently doing (swept along by the Gartners who do the same, but witter on to CEOs rather than credulous surfers).

You never know - there might even be some anti-trust cases (though I don't know how the Indians and Chinese will handle them) that eventually slap down the worst cloud exploiters and transgressors, after a few spectacular bankruptcies.

BPOS, acronym for... Big Piece Of....

Really?

MScrap? no kidding, who is hi/her right mind will ever trust these twats! and their expensive - full of bugs products are less that appealing, and ever increasing in price. No sir....MScrap can kiss it good bye....

I'll wait for 366

@Pete 2

It's totally different.

In the 60s when you rented time on a timeshared mainframe your data was carefully managed and processed by professionals with the integrity of a company like IBM behind them and you had a contract detailing what they could do.

Now it costs the same but if Google/Microsoft/Dropbox etc happen to lose all your data, leak it all to hackers, hand it over to any government without a warrant or leave it on the train - tough.

Poorly thought out I am afraid

Microsoft still thinks that people are as stupid and uninformed about computers as they were back in the 1980s.

They think that people haven't learned anything and that they can get away with putting out dubious information and everyone will just believe whatever they tell them.

Well it doesn't work like that anymore.

Remember, most of these Business Managers (spin doctors) are from Ivy League business schools like Harvard where they are taught old world business management (Robber Baron) techniques and also taught that people are stupid and uninformed and easily manipulated into believing anything they want to convince them of.

Well times have changed and it doesn't work like that anymore either.

Trust me, an informed public who challenges them with real information, real numbers, real technical questions and wants answers drives them crazy. They just don't know how to respond to the questions with more lies and make it believable.

I was watching a program on France 24 and a very knowledgeable contributor on there was talking about the so called "Cloud" which is nothing more than a bunch of private corporate servers and was saying that Cloud computing was just about the worst place to conduct any kind of business or do anything if you value any privacy at all.

He was telling about "master keys" which by law every spy agency has.

Yes the law in England and the law in the United States as well as every other paranoid Country mandates unrestricted access to all of your information in the "Cloud".

Neither Microsoft nor Google nor anyone else has any control over it or can grantee your information is secure because they have to comply with the law of whatever Country the servers are in or are networked to.

Well if the "good guys" have "Master Keys" then you can bet that the "bad guys" will have them too.

I would like to hear Steve Ballmer try to spin that.

I am sure people will figure it out eventually and when they do I don't think they are going to be very happy about it.

What?

I'm sorry if I come across as a cynical old fart, but who is this "informed public" you speak of?

Every day that passes shows me that the public is as UN-informed, hoodwinked and ignorant (*) as ever. If not worse, compared to the increasingly complex world we live in. They're kept that way by politics, business and media - and apparently quite happy to be in that state.

Maybe I'll look at it more positively once the caffeine kicks in...

(*) NB: not saying, stupid - I haven't looked at any YouTube comments yet, this morning.

Bravo Steve ....... Now whatever is next?

"Perhaps that's why Ballmer made the SME play today. But arguably, Microsoft's Office suite is popular among biz customers because its content, unlike that of Google's current Apps product, can be stored offline."

How convenient for a leisurely rummage through your drawers. And you paying for the pleasure too. It must feel good.

Seems like Microsoft are ahead of the game, trailblazing IT rather than chasing wannabe rivals and competitors.